The Citizens Band (“CB”) Radio Service is a system of short-distance radio communications performed on a subset of public radio channels. These services began in the 1940's to provide individuals and businesses a radio band for personal communications. Like most two-way radio services, CB channels are shared by many users but only one station may transmit at a time. Other stations must listen and wait for the shared channel to be available. Moreover, users such as vehicle operators may be limited to performing audio-only communications over a short range using a radio-band that is publicly accessible.
In contrast to the CB Radio Service, wireless networking technologies have experienced explosive growth in both the number of subscribers as well as available features. Generally described, the infrastructure that enables wireless networking consists of hardware (i.e., servers, routers, antennas, etc.), network services, software, and related components. Continuing advancements in this infrastructure is increasing the use and overall role that wireless networking serves in both the business and social landscape. For example, while first generation mobile telephony was limited to audio communications, users are now able to participate in other types of data-based communications such as e-mail, instant messaging, multimedia streaming, etc.
Existing devices are limited in their ability to perform communications over different types of communication systems. For example, wireless telephones are not configured to exchange communications over CB radio bands with a CB radio. In addition, existing CB radios are limited to audio-only communications and have not leveraged emerging wireless networking technologies. As a result, enhanced features that allow multimedia communications are not available using existing CB radios. To address these and other drawbacks, consumers would benefit from a more versatile device that is capable of communicating over CB radio bands as well as the emerging wireless infrastructure.